Time and Again
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Time After Time tag: Theirs is not the only family business.


_A/n: I can't take credit for all of this-Time After Time has two of the best cut scenes in the DVD sets; I highly recommend watching them first. _

**Time and Again**  
K Hanna Korossy

A groan was the first indication he had that Dean was up.

Sam glanced at the ceiling with a wry smile; he knew too well how sore muscles locked up overnight, and Dean had to have some considerable bruises after his fight with Chronos. Add to that the rigors of time travel—and how crazy was their life that time travel was just another occupational hazard now?—and he wasn't surprised Dean was getting up way after the sun. Not that he'd ever been an early riser.

Sam mentally followed the shuffling footsteps across the floor above. Even though he'd won the one good room fair and square with rock over scissors, he'd let his brother have it for the night. Dean had practically been sleepwalking by the time they'd finished dinner after Jody's departure, and he went upstairs to sleep. He needed the rest. And Sam was so tired after days of frantic searching for his brother, he fell asleep as soon as he hit the bedroll down there.

Water chugged with alarming squeals and rattles through the pipes in the wall. The house had apparently been around for more than 60 years, unoccupied for who knows how long; it was amazing the water was still on. Cold as a January lake, but Sam chose to think of it as bracing. Of course, he'd opted to only wash up instead of a full-on shower. His smile blossomed into a grin as he heard Dean's yelp upstairs, followed by a string of curses. His brother had evidently not chosen as wisely.

Sam sighed and pushed back from the table and his laptop, running both hands down his face. He'd slept enough to clear his head, but the fatigue was constant these days. Between staying one step ahead of all-seeing Leviathan and thinking too much about lost loved ones, rest was elusive. And that didn't include his constant battle to separate reality from hallucination. Maybe he could talk Dean into finding some empty off-the-radar cabin in the woods somewhere and holing up for a few days just to recover. The shell-shocked weeks they'd spent at Rufus' place after Bobby died didn't count.

A bang from upstairs, followed by more cursing. Sam winced in sympathy: oh yeah, showers were constructed smaller in the early 1900s, too, for a generally shorter populace. Definitely not Winchester-sized. Dean was bound to be in a _great _mood when he made his appearance. Sam rose to make some pre-emptive hot coffee.

There had been a marked difference in Dean the night before, however. A good one, Sam mused as he measured coffee into the battery-powered coffeepot that was Dean's first acquisition when they went off the grid. At first Sam had thought it was relief at being back in 2012, or a high from having hunted with _the_ Elliot Ness—Sam was more than a little jealous of that himself—or even just Jody's presence. It was the first time they'd reminisced about Bobby without either of them choking up. But Dean had told him they were there to keep fighting, that he had "clarity" about that—not a word Dean usually used—and Sam wondered if something in the 1940s had penetrated his brother's apathy. Even when they'd drank a toast to Bobby the night before with the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue that Jody had found, Dean's expression had gone sober but not dull. Maybe he was finally turning a corner. Sam hadn't even told Jody how worried, how honestly shaken, he'd been to see his big badass brother as lost as he'd been in those weeks after Bobby's death.

And if Dean had looked up the latest on Dick Roman while Sam had been out getting food last night, well, it wasn't like he expected Dean to give up his vendetta. As hopeless as it seemed right now, Sam was keen to watch Dick Roman burn, too.

The clump of booted steps down the stairs had him pouring a steaming cup of coffee and hurrying across the room to hand it over with a grin. Dean's surly expression wavered at the offering, clearly wanting to stay grumpy and failing in face of caffeine and good humor.

"Water's cold 's—" the rest was lost in a slurp of coffee. He sucked in a breath at the heat of it, but that didn't stop him from another sip.

"No gas or electricity, remember?"

Dean rolled his eyes over the cup's rim. "Even the friggin' 1940s had hot water."

"Yeah, well, no Leviathan then, or squatting. Did you stay at Ness's house?"

"No time," Dean said shortly. He stepped around Sam and dropped into the other chair by the table. In between gulps, he nodded at the laptop. "You find another case?"

"Yeah, maybe. Couple of weird deaths in Seattle."

"Everything's weird in Seattle."

Sam sat in the other chair and picked up his own cooled cup. "That's Portland."

"Dude, any place that gets rain ninety percent of the time has gotta be moldy in the brain."

Sam gave it up with a shake of the head and a smile. Honestly, it was good to be arguing about stupid stuff again instead of what to do with Bobby's things and how they might be able to kill Leviathan. Speaking of which, they still needed to figure out something to do with Bobby's twenty boxes of files. Short of renting a trailer to cart it around with them...

Dean pushed to his feet with a grunt and went to get a refill of coffee. He returned with a full cup and one of the powdered donuts they'd picked up on their way into town. "You wanna stop for breakfast on the way?" he asked with an oh-so-appetizing full mouth.

Sam ignored the incongruity of discussing breakfast while Dean scarfed down donuts; his brother had never seen informal and formal meals as mutually exclusive. He roused himself out of revolted fascination with the masticated donut and the powdered sugar mustache Dean now sported to shake his head and say, "Uh, no, actually, there's something else I want to check out here before we leave town."

Dean tilted his head. "Something about the case? Hey, you don't think Ness is buried around here, do you?"

"Uh, I don't know. We could look it up. But no...okay, it's sort of related. Not really."

His brother's eyebrows rose. "Well, that clears it up."

"I mean..." Sam turned back to the table, shuffling through the papers there until he found the one he sought. It was hard to rein in his excitement as he held it up. "Remember this?"

Dean barely gave it a glance. "The letter I wrote you from 1944? Yeah, what about it?"

Sam tapped the letterhead. "Moore's Tailoring &amp; Haberdashery. Ezra Moore, the woman you met, right?"

"Yeah. She was awesome, Sam, like Bobby in drag."

Sam frowned, blinked that image away. "Notice anything else about it?" He tapped the letterhead again.

Dean leaned forward, chewing as he scanned the paper more carefully. He gave Sam a more interested look. "Huh. Sigils. Practically a calling card for any hunter."

"Yeah, there's that, but also, _Moore_." Off Dean's look, he added impatiently, "Like Jess?"

Dean's brow drew together. "Sam, there's gotta be thousands of Moores out there—the chances of them being related..."

"The current owner, Jeremy Moore? He's Jess's uncle," Sam said triumphantly. "I put it together last night. You get what this means, right?"

Dean was looking at him cautiously. He wasn't an idiot; he'd probably made the connection himself. But he clearly didn't want to. "Sam..."

"You know, Brady, Lucifer, Azazel—none of them explained why they wanted Jess and me together. Why introduce her to me and then kill her when she got in the way? It doesn't make sense, man...unless they thought she was in the family business. I don't know, someone to keep me hunting? Or to protect me until it was time?"

Dean was already holding up both hands, calming down what Sam realized was a speech that was growing louder and faster. He made himself sit back in his chair, chewing his lip as Dean eyed him warily.

"It makes sense," Sam said quietly. "It all makes sense."

"Or maybe they just wanted you distracted," Dean countered, equally low but calm. "Or mad enough to jump back in the game when they killed her—we don't know, Sammy. I mean, wouldn't it be a risk to throw another hunter into the mix? If Jess had caught on to Brady—"

"I know," Sam sank, "I know, okay? And Jess was a civilian—you think they'd have known that—but someone in her family could've figured things out and gotten in the way." He barely kept himself from flinching at the sight of Jess in flames in the corner, courtesy of Lucifer, and dug into his palm to make it go away. He'd been doing so well that morning, sometimes he actually forgot...

"Hey, uh..." Dean rubbed his mouth, dislodging the sugar. "You sure Jessica was a non-com? I mean, you were hiding it from her—maybe she was hiding it from you, too?"

Sam paused. He'd thought of that, and he knew Dean could tell he'd thought of that, and didn't want to think about that. "She gave me grief about my 'salt fetish,' dude. She didn't like even the one knife she knew about being in the house. She didn't have any wards, any weapons, not even silver. I'm sure, okay?"

Dean let the lie lay. "Okay." He stirred in his chair. "So you want to swing by this place, see if it's still there?"

"It is." Sam breathed out and took another sip of cold coffee. "We got the stuff from it we needed for the ritual to bring you back."

Dean blinked. "And you didn't...?"

"We were pretty focused on getting you back," Sam said with a crooked smile.

Dean nodded, thinking another moment. Then he slapped his hands on his thighs and stood. "So let's go have a family reunion."

He hadn't thought of it like that, but, yeah, it sort of was. Great, Sam swallowed and stood, reaching for his jacket. Because he wasn't nervous enough.

00000

Nerves changed to something more along the way.

Jeremy Moore wasn't really family, of course; Sam and Jess had never had a chance to make their relationship official. But, now that he was thinking about, the Moores had been pretty accepting of their daughter's death in a suspicious fire, of their daughter's boyfriend disappearing off the map soon after, and of his checking in a few times before he'd officially become Public Enemy No. 1 and then publicly dead. Maybe they'd always known about Sam Winchester's secret life? And if so, just what _did _they know?

Now that he wasn't racing to save Dean, Sam could actually check out the shop they walked in to. The muted colors and wooden counters and spotless floor all spoke of a classier establishment than Winchesters usually frequented, and one that had been around for some time. He looked over to find Dean examining the place with a soft smile and a rare look of wonder.

Feeling Sam's glance, Dean turned to him. "Hasn't changed much."

"No, it hasn't," came a clear, strong voice. They both turned to watch the speaker approach.

It was the same man who'd been there when Sam had come in with Jody. No names had been exchanged at the time, only the secret language of hunters to conduct their brief business. But now that he was looking for it, Sam could see some of the Moore traits: the height, the nose, the way the man held himself. He was the right age, too, silver streaking the temples of his neatly trimmed dark blond hair and the beginning of age spots on his manicured hands.

"We've made as few changes as possible in our eighty-three years of business," the man continued. "How can you improve on a classic? It's a part of Moore legacy."

"Which legacy would that be?" Dean spoke up. "The nice duds, or what goes under them?"

Sam gave him a sharp look; this was not how he'd planned to start this discussion.

The shopkeeper, however, seemed unperturbed. "Dean Winchester, I presume? I see my aunt was right about you."

Dean immediately straightened, the smirk wiped away. "Aunt?"

"Aunt Ezzie." The man smiled, a little rogue slipping into the polished look. "You know, not only hunters keep journals."

"You're Jeremy Moore," Sam said, less guess than confirmation.

"And you're Sam Winchester. I didn't put it together when you first stopped in, but I've had time to do a little research since then."

Sam swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

But Jeremy was already back to Dean. "Aunt Ezzie left you something, in fact. She was quite clear it was to be held until this year, even when her brothers doubted her." He turned to reach an arm under the nearest counter and withdrew a bundle. Sam recognized his brother's brown jacket wrapped around it, a little faded with age, and heard Dean's teeth clack together with astonishment as he accepted it. "I believe there's a letter in there for you, too."

Dean immediately began unwrapping the bundle on the counter, grinning like a kid at Christmas.

Sam enjoyed the sight until he felt Jeremy's hand on his arm, pulling him one step over. Amusement dropping, his stomach balled with anxiety again, especially when he met the man's grave eyes.

"I know your name, of course. We never met, but I heard a lot about you from my brother and Jessie." Sam could see the sorrow now.

It echoed what he felt, the loss he still carried every single day. "Sir, I am _so_ sorry," Sam said earnestly. "I went to school to leave all that behind—If I'd thought for a second I'd be putting her in danger, I-I never would have—"

Jeremy Moore's eyes softened in a way that reminded Sam a lot of his niece. "Samuel. Please, you don't have to explain. You think we didn't look into it, find evidence of demonic activity? None of us thought it would follow you, either, or we would have intervened before. Evil finds us all. But I heard you got the son of a bitch a few years later, actually killed him." He shook his head with something that looked an awful lot like admiration. "That helped. Her loss was awful—of course it was. But we didn't blame you, son. We knew your past, your loss. There was a reason you were left alone to continue your work with your brother."

Sam stared at him, mind a little blown. The Moores had always known. And they hadn't objected. And didn't blame him even after the fact. It was the way of life with hunters, but he'd never even remotely suspected, considered...

One blink, and the room was full of bodies, Jess's family scorched and disemboweled and hanging. Then another blink and it was just Jeremy again, watching him carefully.

His arm was nudged from behind. "You all right?"

Dean. Sam swallowed, running a quick tongue over his lips as he gave Jeremy what he hoped was a grateful look before glancing at his brother. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. What did Ezzie—Ezra—leave you?" He was pretty sure he even remembered Jess talking about what he'd understood to be her Aunt Essie. She'd sent Jess some stuff for their apartment, and he wondered now how many of them were talismans or marked with sigils. For all the good they'd done.

Dean was honest-to-God beaming. "The stuff I left here back then and a letter. But, get this, it's from _Ness_."

Sam looked suitably impressed. "Seriously? Wow. You could probably sell that for a few bucks now."

He got an affronted glare. "Dude, I'm not selling this for anything." He quickly slipped the folded, yellowed paper into his jacket.

"What did he write?" Sam couldn't help asking because, seriously. _Elliot Ness_.

Dean just smiled at him. Even with his eyes, which Sam hadn't seen in...a really, really long time.

He turned back to Jeremy, who was watching them with what seemed almost wistfulness. He had two brothers, if Sam remembered correctly, one of whom had gone into law, the other—Jess's father—into real estate. Probably hadn't stayed in the family business, or in the area.

Moore straightened himself. "I trust that's everything for today?"

"Yeah," Dean answered for them. "Thanks," he held up the bundle of clothes, "this is-this is great. Your aunt was a real spitfire."

One of Jeremy's eyebrows went up, but he looked more amused than insulted. "Oh, you don't have to tell me. She only passed away four years ago, actually."

Dean blinked. "Huh. You know, that doesn't surprise me."

They shook hands, said their goodbyes. Jeremy's hand lingered a moment longer in Sam's. "I hope you'll come back if you need anything, Sam. The fight must continue." He eyed Sam pointedly.

Sam opened his mouth, wondering again just how much Jeremy Moore knew, and closed it again, simply nodding. He did know all about continuing the fight, and family businesses.

He would think about that a lot. Both that afternoon as Dean crowed in the car about his letter, and a few months later at SucroCorp, when Dean once again vanished with the bad guy in a flash of light.

**The End**


End file.
